When "Pinups," Bowie's 1973 homage to the British bands that influenced his career was released, finding the original versions of the songs he covered was not quite as easy as it is today. An original single by The Mojos was not just a few mouse clicks away.
As Bruce Eder writes on All Music:
..apart from the Easybeats' "Friday on My Mind" and the Yardbirds' "Shapes of Things," little here was among the biggest hits of their respective artists' careers, and the Who's "I Can't Explain" and "Anyway Anyhow Anywhere" were the only ones whose original versions were easily available or played very often on the radio; everything else was as much a history lesson, for Pink Floyd fans whose knowledge of that band went back no further than Atom Heart Mother, or into Liverpool rock (the Merseys' "Sorrow"), as it was a tour through Bowie's taste in '60s music.
So when I compiled the "Original Pin Ups" mix for cassette many years ago and played it on a crowded Friday night at Smash Compact Discs on St. Marks' Place where I worked for 3 years, it was quite the novelty. It also prompted my friend Dan Levy, who had been shopping for 20 minutes while listening, to say one of my favorite things ever:
Dan:
WHAT IS THIS?
ME:
It is the original versions of the songs on Bowi...
DAN:
I KNOW WHAT IT IS!! BUT WHAT IS IT?
18 years later and that still makes me laugh.
Well, here it is, for those who may not have used those mouse clicks to track everything down themselves.
Rosalyn- The Pretty Things
Here Comes The Night - Them
I Wish You Would- The Yardbirds
See Emily Play- Pink Floyd
Everything's All Right- The Mojos
I Can't Explain- The Who
Friday On My Mind- The Easybeats
Sorrow- The Merseys
Don't Bring Me Down- The Pretty Things
Shapes Of Things- The Yardbirds
Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere- The Who
Where Have All The Good Times Gone- The Kinks
ZIP FILE
5 comments:
Looks fantastic, thanks Sal. Downloading now and going right into my ITunes mix here at work.
Right now I have the last Van M. record on...I seem to have fallen in love with it over the past week or so. That's entrainment, I guess.
Brilliant idea. Thanks, even if as always I can't download the zip file.
BTW, I hate Pinups with a passion, with the exception of Sorrow.
As I said in my review back in the day (good lord, I'm old) it's essentially twelve version of his earlier crappy cover of "Let's Spend the Night Together."
Sorry if that sounded overly snarky...what I was trying to say is, that playlist is the bomb, and thanks for posting it.
Actually Steve, I love Pinups and I love Bowie and I know you don't and you don't. I was more concerned with why the hell you can't unzip my files.
FILES...it says FILES.
Sal:
For some reason they download directly into a black hole on my computer. Seriously -- somewhere on my hard drive, I have every one of your playlists -- I watch them download into some temp file -- and then they vanish. It's bizarre.
In any case, I got this on my girlfriend's computer, so the story has a happy ending.
:-)
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